Day: July 15, 2020

There has been an alarming decline in the number of children getting vaccinated for such preventable diseases as diphtheria, tetanus and measles, the United Nations warned Wednesday. The U.N.’s World Health Organization and UNICEF blame the decline on the disruption of routine health care caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of World Health Organization, attends the virtual 73rd World Health Assembly in Geneva, May 18, 2020.“Vaccines are one of the most powerful tools in the history of public health, and more children are now being immunized than ever before,” WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “But the pandemic has put those gains at risk. The avoidable suffering and death caused by children missing out on routine immunizations could be far greater than COVID-19 itself.” The WHO and UNICEF said that even when vaccines are available, many children who need them are afraid to leave their homes because of the coronavirus or the difficulties of traveling because of COVID-19 restrictions.  But even before the pandemic hit, the agencies said, progress in vaccinating children was slipping. They said nearly 14 million children did not get shots against measles and pertussis in 2019. Most of these children live in Africa. Economic hardships also prevented children in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan and the Philippines from getting necessary vaccines. “COVID-19 has made previously routine vaccination a daunting challenge,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said. “We must prevent a further deterioration in vaccine coverage and urgently resume vaccination programs before children’s lives are threatened by other diseases. We cannot trade one health crisis for another.”
…

A wave of tweets in apparent hacking swept through Twitter on Wednesday, with more than half a dozen high-profile accounts – belonging to U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden, billionaire Bill Gates, and rapper Kanye West, among others – used to solicit bitcoin donations.The cause of the breach was not immediately clear, but the scale and the scope of the problem suggested that it was not limited to a single account or service.Shares of Twitter tumbled nearly 4% in trading after the market close.Twitter said in an email that it was looking into the matter and would issue a statement shortly.Some of the tweets were swiftly deleted but there appeared to be a struggle to regain control of the accounts. In the case of billionaire Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, for example, one tweet soliciting cryptocurrency was removed and, sometime later, another one appeared.Among the others affected: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the corporate accounts for Uber and Apple.A spokesman for Biden’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tesla was not immediately available for comment.Publicly available blockchain records show that the apparent scammers have already received more than $100,000 worth of cryptocurrency.
 
…

Researchers believe they have identified the area of the brain that determines a preference for alcohol, perhaps the first step in an eventual treatment for alcoholism.In a study published Monday in the Society for Neuroscience journal eNeuro, researchers said they were trying to determine why some people can consume alcohol every day without developing dependence while less frequent drinkers develop a dependence.The researchers, from the University of Massachusetts, offered a test group of rats intermittent access to a 20 percent alcohol solution, then trained them to self-administer both 10 and 20 percent solutions of alcohol, as well as a sugar solution as a reward. They then were able to determine which rats were high or low alcohol consumers and divide them accordingly.The researchers monitored the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) activity in rats as they consumed the alcohol. The OFC is the brain region associated with impulsivity, reward and decision-making. They found OFC activity in spiked in rats that preferred to consume higher levels of alcohol when they consumed it than in rats who did not prefer it as much.The researchers said the strength of the OFC activity was directly linked to how much the rats preferred drinking the stronger alcohol solution, suggesting the OFC is the portion of the brain that encodes individual preferences for alcohol.The researchers stressed that further human research was needed to determine whether these findings would translate exactly to people. And they have not yet determined the root developmental, environmental and genetic causes driving these preferences for alcohol.But they said understanding the underlying mechanisms in the brain had the potential to target more precisely what happens when a person has problems controlling alcohol consumption.
…

NASA plans to launch its newest Mars rover by the end of the month after a hardware issue scrapped an earlier launch.  The space agency has until the middle of August to complete a successful launch before planetary alignment issues force a costly delay to the mission.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
…

The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF are calling for a renewed push for vaccinations, as the numbers of vaccinations fall due to the coronavirus pandemic.In a statement issued Wednesday, the non-profits say child vaccination rates plateaued at 85 percent in the decade prior to the outbreak, with an estimate that at least 14 million infants were not vaccinated each of those years.“Vaccines are one of the most powerful tools in the history of public health, and more children are now being immunized than ever before,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.But the pandemic has slowed production of the vital preventative vaccines, and stay-at-home orders, economic hardships and other obstacles have hindered access to doctor’s offices and clinics.For example, new data released by the WHO indicates the first four months of 2020 saw a significant drop in in children completing the recommended number of vaccination doses against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP3). Such a decline would be the first in nearly three decades, the WHO said.In a poll conducted in June by the WHO, UNICEF and Garvi, in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the Sabin Vaccine Institute and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, three-quarters of 82 countries that responded reported COVID-19-related disruptions in their immunization services.A majority of the countries reporting disruptions were located in Africa, the Americas and the Eastern Mediterranean, the data shows.UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore urged governments to continue to support their vaccination programs, even as scientists race to discover a treatment and vaccine for COVID-19.“We must prevent a further deterioration in vaccine coverage and urgently resume vaccination programs before children’s lives are threatened by other diseases. We cannot trade one health crisis for another,” she said. 
…

President Donald Trump is expected to announce a new federal rule to speed up the environmental review process for proposed highways, gas pipelines and other major infrastructure, a move that critics are describing as the dismantling of a 50-year-old environmental protection law.
 
Trump will travel to Atlanta on Wednesday to announce the federal rule as he seeks to make it easier to meet some of the country’s infrastructure needs. When he first announced the effort in January, the administration set a two-year deadline for completing full environmental impact reviews while less comprehensive assessments would have to be completed within one year. The White House said the final rule will promote the rebuilding of America.
 
Critics call the Republican president’s efforts a cynical attempt to limit the public’s ability to review, comment on and influence proposed projects under the National Environmental Policy Act, one of the country’s bedrock environmental protection laws.
 
“This may be the single biggest giveaway to polluters in the past 40 years,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that works to save endangered species.
 
Trump has made slashing government regulation a hallmark of his presidency and held it out as a way to boost jobs. But environmental groups say the regulatory rollbacks threaten public health and make it harder to curb global warming. With Congress and the administration divided over how to boost infrastructure investment, the president is relying on his deregulation push to demonstrate progress.
 
“The United States can’t compete and prosper if a bureaucratic system holds us back from building what we need,” Trump said when first announcing the sweeping rollback of National Environmental Policy Act rules.
 
Georgia is emerging as a key swing state in the general election. Trump won the Republican-leaning state by 5 percentage points in 2016, but some polls show him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. This will be Trump’s ninth trip to Georgia and his sixth visit to Atlanta during his presidency.
 
The president’s trip also comes as the state has seen coronavirus cases surge and now has tallied more than 12,000 confirmed cases and more than 3,000 deaths.
 
Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is running against incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue, said Trump’s decision to come to Georgia to discuss infrastructure as the state’s coronavirus crisis worsens demonstrates that the president is “in denial and out of control.”
 
“Coming here for a routine photo-op is, frankly, bizarre, surreal against this unprecedented health and economic crisis,” Ossoff said.
 
Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said that if Ossoff views a major policy announcement to expedite critical infrastructure projects as anything other than about job growth and economic expansion, then it might explain why he lost an election two years ago.
 
The White House said the administration’s efforts will expedite the expansion of Interstate 75 near Atlanta, an important freight route where traffic can often slow to a crawl. The state will create two interstate lanes designed solely for commercial trucks. The state announced last fall, before the White House unveiled its proposed rule, that it was moving up the deadline for substantially completing the project to 2028.
 
Thousands of Americans on both sides of the new federal rule wrote to the Council on Environmental Quality to voice their opinions.
 
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce cited a North Carolina bridge in its letter as an example of unreasonable delays, saying the bridge that connected Hatteras Island to Bodie Island took 25 years to complete, but only three years to build. “The failure to secure timely approval for projects and land management decisions is also hampering economic growth,” the business group wrote.
 
The Natural Resources Defense Council said that when Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act 50 years ago, it did so with the understanding that environmental well-being is compatible with economic well-being. The proposed rule, it said, would lead federal agencies to make decisions with significant environmental impacts without ever considering those impacts in advance.
 
“At the end of the day, it would lead to poor decision, increased litigation and less transparency,” said Sharon Buccino, a senior director at the environmental group.
 
Trump’s trip to Georgia comes one day after Biden announced an infrastructure plan that places a heavy emphasis on improving energy efficiency in buildings and housing as well as promoting conservation efforts in the agriculture industry. In the plan, Biden pledges to spend $2 trillion over four years to promote his energy proposals.
 
Trump’s push to use regulatory changes to boost infrastructure development also comes as the House and Senate pursue starkly different efforts. The Democratic-controlled House passed a $1.5 trillion plan that goes beyond roads and bridges and would fund improvements to schools, housing, water and sewer, and broadband. A GOP-controlled Senate panel passed a bill last year setting aside $287 billion for roads and bridges, but other committees are still working on the measure, including how to pay for it.
…

Britain announced a ban Tuesday on equipment from the firm Huawei in the rollout of its 5G super-fast mobile networks – reversing a decision made just six months ago. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the move appears to have been forced by U.S. sanctions on Huawei – and China is warning of possible consequences in future trade relations with Britain
…

A European Union court on Wednesday delivered a hammer blow to the bloc’s attempts to rein in sweetheart tax deals between multinationals and individual member countries when it ruled that technology giant Apple does not have to pay 13 billion euros ($15 billion) in back taxes to Ireland.
 
The EU Commission had claimed in 2016 that Apple had an illegal tax deal with Irish authorities that allowed it to pay extremely low rates. But the EU’s General Court said Wednesday that “the Commission did not succeed in showing to the requisite legal standard that there was an advantage.”
 
“The Commission was wrong to declare” that Apple “had been granted a selective economic advantage and, by extension, state aid,” said the Luxembourg-based court, which is the second-highest in the EU. The ruling can only be appealed on points of law.
 
The EU Commission had ordered Apple to pay for gross underpayment of tax on profits across the European bloc from 2003 to 2014. The commission said Apple used two shell companies in Ireland to report its Europe-wide profits at effective rates well under 1%.
 
In many cases, multinationals can pay taxes on the bulk of their revenue across the EU’s 27 countries in the one EU country where they have their regional headquarters. For Apple and many other big tech companies, that is Ireland. For small EU countries like Ireland, that helps attract international business and even a small amount of tax revenue is helpful for them. The net result, however, is that the companies often end up paying very low tax.
 
The Irish government welcomed the ruling. “Ireland has always been clear that there was no special treatment provided” to the U.S. company, it said in a statement. “Ireland appealed the Commission Decision on the basis that Ireland granted no state aid and the decision today from the Court supports that view.”
 
Apple CEO Tim Cook has called the EU demand for back taxes “total political crap.”
 
The defeat is especially stinging for EU Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, who has campaigned for years to root out special tax deals. Trump has referred to her as the “tax lady” who “really hates the U.S.”
 
The Eurodad network of 49 civil society organisations said that the ruling showed how tough any tax policy remains. “”If we had a proper corporate tax system, we wouldn’t need long court cases to find out whether it is legal for multinational corporations to pay less than 1% in taxes,” said Tove Maria Ryding of Eurodad.
 
Even though taxation remains under the authority of its member countries, the EU is seeking to create a level playing field among the 27 nations by making sure special deals including ultra-low tax rates with multinationals are weeded out.
 
The ruling comes at a time when tax income for EU nations is especially welcome because of the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. At a time when cash-strapped households are suffering, the EU wants to make sure multinationals making profits on the continent pay their fair share, too.
 
Meanwhile, the EU Commission was to unveil new plans to combat tax fraud only hours after the ruling in Luxembourg.
 
“In times like these when we are passing multibillion-euro economic stimulus packages, we cannot afford to waste a single cent in tax revenue”, said EU legislator Markus Ferber of the Christian Democrat EPP Group.
  
…

Researchers have taken a scientific look at why people love the music they do and how it connects to important times in their lives. The study, published last week in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, sought to look at music people hear in their teenage years and how that music becomes intrinsically linked to a person’s “sense of themself.” Researchers with the University of Westminster School of Social Sciences in London analyzed 80 guests on the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) show Desert Island Discs in which celebrities select eight pieces of music that they would take with them to a desert island. The researchers found half of the songs participants chose were selected because they were linked to important memories from when they were either between the ages of 10 and 19 or between 20 and 29. They theorize it is during those years that people are forming the essential sense of themselves.  Researchers found the songs on Desert Island Discs were all tied to key transitions in participants’ lives such as meeting a partner, attending college or some other life-altering event. Lead researcher University of Westminster neuropsychologist Catherine Loveday said those songs tend to influence a person’s taste in music for years to come. She said the memories people form in their teenage and early adult years are what she and her fellow researchers call “the self-defining period” in which the brain is “taking snapshots” of episodes more than any other time in a person’s life. 
…